My Sweet Little Pete

My youngest twin, Peter, was in the bathroom and I was on the computer here as his siblings were finishing their lunch while watching golf with their father. After about five minutes I realized he was singing in the bathroom and I hear him ask his father, "Daddy, what comes after seven swans a swimming?" He tells him 8 lords a leaping at which point I correct him and let him know it's 8 maids a milking. He went through all Twelve Days of Christmas while sitting on the toilet and making sure to emphasize the fifth day "Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive Golllllllllllllllllden Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings" as it echoed through the bathroom. The acoustics in there are awesome.

I'm laughing to myself here, as I don't know what possessed this child to start singing Christmas carols in the middle of March. I would have expected something more along the lines of "here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail...." or something like that.

He cracks me up. The things he does and says just amaze me some days and even on my worst days he manages to make me giggle or smile at least.

Like two days ago. He was busily drawing something at the living room table when everyone else had gone to bed. I kept telling him he had to get up there too, it was a school night. "Just five more minutes mommy". "Okayyyyyyyyy" I mumble. He comes up to me and says "here." I look at the piece of paper folded in half with an orange heart on the front and my name(mommy) in the middle of the heart.

On the inside he wrote:

"I like you mommy. Mommy is my bastfrad foravr. Mommy is my bast frad into wod."

Translation:

I like you mommy. Mommy is my best friend forever. Mommy is my best friend in the whole world.

I love this boy.

Who wouldn't?

He is such an amazing boy, and has this silent sweet side to him. Sure, he can be a handful some days and has a nasty little temper sometimes. But overall, he's a lovable little fella and I just can't help but find myself feeling blessed for having him in my life.

What Do I Do Now? LOL

I just dropped my boys off at school and my daughter and I were coming home and saw two tumbleweeds blowing in the wind on the road in front of us. She was giggling at them. Then the one in our lane decided to stop moving, right in front of my car. It sure is windy out there. I thought it was suppose to be in the 80's today, but right now it doesn't look very hopeful for that to happen. It's only 9 in the morning, and this is Vegas, so anything is possible I suppose.

As we pulled up in front of the house, my daughter saw her little friend from three doors down just running towards us, with her grandmother trailing right behind her. They were so excited to see one another and the little girl is just waving and my daughter is waving from her car seat. We couldn't get out of the van fast enough for her to go and hug her little friend. I hadn't even changed my daughter, she was still in the clothes she had on yesterday. How embarrassing. I told the grandmother I needed to change her and we'd be right out. No way I was letting her in the house with the way it looked this morning. I had a feeling she'd be right over this morning. Something told me that I needed to pick up a little before we left for school. So I began removing cereal bowls from the coffee table and picking up the toys that were strewn everywhere, and fixed the couch cushions and cleared off the island in the kitchen and the table "just in case" she stopped by unexpectedly.

I'm just glad I caught her by the curb and not my front door.

So I thought about surfing the net while she's gone, look for jobs and daycare and all that "fun" stuff. But I think I'm just going to clean. Goddess knows this place needs a good scrub down. So that's what I shall do, clean my house and enjoy the peace and quiet. I was so excited about having a few minutes of peace and quiet that I still have the kids tv show on in the background. I guess I just couldn't wait to have said peace and quiet and wanted to tell the other moms out there what they have to look forward to when their little ones who are now teething and screaming and crying, that there is a light at the end of the parenting tunnel where you can just stop....and breathe.

Of course I will admit, I'm not looking forward to the time when it's happening five days a week and my little baby girl, the last of my little ducklings goes off to school. Then I don't think I'll be so excited. I'll be holding onto tears and missing her not only because she is my baby girl, my little princess but because I know she's getting older and I am too. :(

But for now I'll bask in the quiet solitude of no fighting siblings, no banging, no worries of stepping on legos or game pieces, and give myself a little bit of Rest and Relaxation. However, that vacuum cleaner is calling me so I just might have to put the R and R on hold.

Whirlwind of Emotions

~Magickal Graphics~
Jared had left and started his new life on the 4th of this month, and I was grappling with those emotions of him being gone. However, in the same breath I was elated that my two "middle men" (as I lovingly refer to them) were going to be here in a week and two days at the time. My poor brain and heart were confused because they didn't know how to feel. I'd find myself crying and smiling at the same time on some nights, worry for my son and joy for my middle men's return home.
Crazy huh?
So I managed to get the house together and it was Saturday morning, the 12th of March. The younger kids dad was out in the garage making room for a kitchen table that his mother was bringing over. It was a windy day out and the kids were playing up front and I stood outside pacing waiting for my boys to arrive looking at the clock on my blackberry what seemed like every ten minutes. They were to be here at noon and it was now 2:30 and no sight of or phone call from them at all. I'm now pacing, finally I call them and they tell me they are stuck in dead traffic at the Hoover Dam. I finally decide to sit on one of the kitchen chairs that were sitting in the garage and we all gathered round and were talking. His mom starts talking about how a woman is supposed to take care of the man and some biblical jibberish I really wasn't interested in at all. I bit my tongue because what I wanted to tell her was the man shouldn't be an asshole to you in the process if you choose to "care for him". I'm more of the type of person who believes that a relationship is fifty fifty. It should be equally shared chores, and equally shared love and effort for all parties involved.
Okay, got on a tangent there, let's get back to the story now shall we?
Finally I go inside and sit on the couch. We are watching some movie which I don't remember because I was too busy worrying about when my kids would get here. They open the door around a little after 4 p.m. and come running to me. My oldest middle man hugs me and my youngest has these wide brown eyes and a smile on his face as he shrieks with excitement to see me. I hug them both so tightly, tell them how tall they got since I last saw them Christmas Day at the airport, and then we start our visit.
It was a good visit, despite an episode of my youngest middle man, Christian, getting sick at the mall on an outing we had taken Sunday. We watched Where the Wild Things are that night and I was thankful he felt better on Monday. We went to the boys baseball game on Monday, Tuesday headed to Red Rock which Dusty absolutely loved, Wednesday we went to the park with a mini-picnic of sandwiches, chips and cookies, and then headed to my daughter's dance class. Thursday came and the mood of all my kids changed so dramatically.
Dusty was quiet and somewhat melancholy, but he didn't cry. He told me he wished they could stay one more day. I told him to call his dad and ask him, but he said no. I even asked him if he could just pick them up early in the morning on Friday like 5 a.m. or something like that and he still said no. What the difference is between sleeping in a hotel or sleeping at their mom's is and leaving the same day back to his house I don't know. didn't ask, but should have asked. We played basketball in the back yard, and played simon says a bunch of times while we waited for him to come get them. Christian kept crying and he laid his head on the wall on the opening between the kitchen and living room. I was making dinner and he looks at me with those big brown eyes of his and I see the pouty face and then the tears and he tells me "I don't want to go." I hugged him. I managed NOT to cry, which was so so hard for me to do.
We ate and I held him on the couch, he was tired. Dusty sat next to me and was showing me his transformers and their powers and speed. Explaining to me what each one is capable of doing. Then, the dog started barking and I jumped and there was a knock on the door.
It was him.
He raced in here so quickly and wouldn't even talk just for a moment. It was like he was racing to get out of here. Christian began crying, not just a whimper but sobbing profusely, saying over and over again "I don't want to go" as I'm lacing up his shoes and trying to keep it together...then I lost it. I looked at Dusty and told him "I did pretty good, huh, didn't cry all day," and smiled at him through all the tears. He looked at me so sadly and I knew he didn't want to go either, because he told me so.
What kills me is not so much the fact that my boys live with their father, their are dads that get custody which if they are fit to do so isn't a big deal, it's the fact that he cannot see the pain they are in when they have to leave their siblings and their mother and travel over 1200 miles away from them. How he can't see what it's doing to them on an emotional level. How he can't see that it is so much better in THEIR interests to be closer to both of us. Or maybe he sees it(you'd have to be blind not to) perhaps he just doesn't give a damn.
Kalaya, John John and Peter all hugged their brothers and said their I love you's to the boys. Then ran upstairs crying. I hugged and kissed them and told them I loved them one more time. I told Dusty to call me. Then he picked up Christian who was still crying and through his tears and sobbing he holds his arm out to me over his dad's shoulder and tells me " I don't want to gooooooooo." I grab his hand one last time and tell him "it's okay baby you'll be back soon," and they walked through the door.
I completely lost it at that point, crying uncontrollably on the front of my porch. Praying to the Goddess to protect my babies in my absence, to watch over them while they are gone. I watched the suv drive away into the darkness beginning to count down the days until we are together again.

Today I took my son to the airport and said good bye.
This was the hardest thing I had to do. I know we have not had the best relationship, and yeah, I've made some crappy mistakes when it came to raising him which I still get flack over with constant reminders of those mistakes on occasion. However, I know that my son and I have talked about my mistakes and he forgave me for the poor choices I've made and how they affected him, and he said he was glad those things happened or he wouldn't be going in the direction he's going now and he never would have met the people who helped get him to this point in his life. He said he wouldn't change a thing. We talked in the car yesterday about how he wondered if I hadn't moved out here and things had been different, he knows he would be in some sort of music field but maybe not doing what he's doing now. We talked about a bunch of things. We got him a cake yesterday, triple chocolate with white chocolate shavings on top and I took him to walmart last night for some cd's he could burn music on to listen to on the plane. He said good night to me before he went to bed and went upstairs.
Then, this morning, it hit me.
Like a ton of bricks, as we were getting the children's jackets and shoes and he is standing by the living room window I walked over to him and smiled and then I said "okay I'm going to hug you now and then I'm going to cry." He hugged me with his right arm and I put my head into his shoulder and the tears came flowing. Then I tried to laugh and told him "okay, I'm now going to continue crying and then I'm going to laugh." He snickered. I told him "I love you Jared." He said "i love you too mom." Then I grabbed his other arm and threw it around me and he hugged me more. I just sobbed and hugged him for what seemed like not enough time. I know he's not a "touchy/feely/huggy" type guy, but he let his mother hug him and get all sappy on him. For that I am grateful.
I kissed his head and told him to be safe.
I gave him a Christmas tree pen with little fuzzies and a light up tree on the top and told him to use that to write all his songs.
He's a man now. All grown up and I've let him go, as hard as it was. I drove him to the airport and hugged him one more time and he got out of the van, grabbed his backpack, and his suitcase gave the kids a high five, hugged his sister, grabbed his guitar and looked at me, I saw that look as though he was thinking "I'm gonna miss you", he said he loved me again and shut the door and walked away.
I sat there in the car and watched him walk away I followed him until the automatic doors opened... and he was gone....just like that.

My "Baby" Is About to Leave the Nest

I'm numb.

I am excited for him, but at the same time I can't help but worry. He's not only moving out of the house, he's moving to another state. 18 years old and he's legally a man so I can't tie him to the bed in the hopes of keeping him here longer with me, just so we can have some time together with each other.

We don't have a close bond like we did when he was younger. We use to do so much together, go to the park, and the library, I volunteered at his school and we would read books together and watch movies together with his younger brother(who is now 15). Life was so much easier back then.

Now he is the young man who has dreams of becoming a famous rock star. He plays the guitar like it's a second appendage on his body. How he moves his fingers so quickly I will never know. He has a gift, one he did not receive from his mother here as I can barely sing(except in the shower LOL ) let alone play an instrument. I can play mary had a little lamb on the piano and heart and soul(intro) but that's about it for me musically. My son taught himself to play guitar, and keyboard and drums. He took a guitar class freshman year just to learn how to read the chords. He's highly intelligent, yet sometimes lacks the good sense God gave a goose as my mother always said to me. He gets that gift of good sense from me I suppose, as I sometimes tend to lack that gift as well.

My son is an amazing young man. He's had a rough life, his father has been absent for a good portion of it and he's never really had much of a male role model except for my brother in law who is an awesome guy and my father, and I have made some pretty crappy life choices that he and I both have suffered because of them. I've always had compliments from people who know him saying what a "good kid" he is. True, he's made some rather poor choices in his life, but who hasn't. Life isn't about living up to others expectations it's living up to your own. If you are happy with your life's choices, and you can look in the mirror and say "I'm proud of what I accomplished today" no matter how big or small the task, then it doesn't matter how you get to where you need to be, as long as you don't harm yourself or others in the process. I've told him this, on more than one occasion, as this is a lesson I've learned myself by taking the road of hard knocks. Not exactly the road I want him to travel either, but it's his life not mine and he has to live with the consequences good or bad.

So here is this once little man now towering over me at 6'3" tall, tattoo on his belly and gauges in his ears, long hair that will eventually cascade down his back one day I'm sure going off to join his band mates in a city and state so far away. I felt myself tearing up the other day as we chatted, I told him how much I love him and hope for him to be happy in the quest of his musical dreams. How I will always worry about him even if he's fifty and I'm 71.

We went out for ice cream and had a nice chat together. I told him after he asked me for a ride to meet a friend "Now I hope you realize that if you get stuck in Ohio, I can't come get you because it will take a good four days to get there, and I don't think my van will make it." He laughed. He said not to worry because if he ever did get stuck he'd have his band mates with him.

I told him how some days I will say out loud "Watch over your homie" to a friend of his who passed away last year. He smiled. I know his friend will watch over him, and I know for a fact that his great grandmother is watching over him as well. He'll be fine. He'll do well. I have faith in him.

Okay, I'm starting to cry here so I'm going to get going. Goddess bless my son on his life's journey and protect him. As much as I don't want to I have to let him go. I'm loosening the apron strings, one at a time, this last one is the hardest to untie but my little duckling needs to fly. I guess I'll leave a trail of bread crumbs so he can find his way home again in the form of emails and phone calls.

I love you Jared. Stay safe.

Pajama Day and Girl Scout Cookies, Two of My Favorite Things

It's reading week at school this week. Last night we had movie night and celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday with a birthday cake and three movies, the Sneetches, The Zax and Green Eggs and Ham. We bought one bag of popcorn and three bottles of water at a dollar each, plus one box of girl scout peanut butter cookies at $3.50 each. Total for last night's "free" movie night at the school...seven dollars and fifty cents. Actually $8.00 I gave the little brownie a fifty cent tip when I told her to keep the change. LOL I was utterly disappointed at how much smaller the actual cookies are and so are the boxes. The price has gone up considerably over the years and I can't believe I actually shelled out almost 4 dollars for a box of those things. The four of us only had 3 cookies each with three left over to take to their dad when we got home.

There was a giant cake that said "Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss", one red iced and one blue iced. It was a nice evening for us, and they had a raffle of Dr. Seuss goodies (free tix) and I was hoping we'd win the giant stuffed dolphin and book. No such luck. Kids were upset they didn't get to win, and I tried to explain to them that only nine people would win. Then I told them to look around and see all the people who were there. They even gave away uniform T-shirts, one for each family member in one winners family.

Today was Pajama Day and I wore pigtails and put on my robe and my comfy jammie bottoms and a tshirt. I took in my daughter's MY LITTLE PONY doll named Starsong since I didn't have a blankie.LOL The boys were in their spiderman jammies and my daughter was in her Disney Princesses jammies. The principal had a Marvin the Martian shirt on, Spartans pajama bottoms and a green robe with his name on it. I was suppose to read, but there were quite a few moms and the principal who read to the kids, that the teacher told me I'd have to do it next week when I come in. Bummer. :(

My daughter just walked up to me now and told me "Mommy I know why penguins are mean to people," and I asked her why, she says to me, "Because they are black". I didn't quite understand her thinking, so I probed a little further. "So, are black people mean?" She said yes. I told her "No they aren't. You're Auntie Tawanda(a friend of mine) is black and she is a nice person." Then she looked at me all puzzled and grins. "oh," she says to me. I don't know where she got the idea that black is bad. I don't want her thinking black is bad. I tried to tell her that sometimes in movies they make monsters black to be scary, but that just because a person is black doesn't mean they are bad or scary. I told her that white people can be mean and so can black people, but it's not because of the color of their skin. Then she said to me "well, Peter is mean to me." And I said "Peter is mean to you because he is mad, not because he's white." Not sure if she grasped the whole color concept as a whole here yet. I may have to have a refresher conversation in a few days.

It's time for lunch I better run. Think it's going to be grilled cheese and tomato soup day here, followed by some tasty peanut butter cookies the teacher gave to me this morning since she couldn't give them to the kids(peanut allergies for some).

See ya later! :)

Little Playground Monsters

Let me tell you what happened to my son at the park this afternoon. We planned this big day at the park with a classmate of his and his brother's today. We were all having a good time, and then the boy had to leave and we stayed a bit longer because I was enjoying the fresh breezy air outside, and so were the children.

I had met another mom at the park and we were busily chatting as I was watching my kids in the sandbox. All of a sudden I see this little monster throwing sand at my son. He's on one of those little tractor toys with the digger on the end. I see this boy bend towards my son still throwing dirt. I'm yelling to my son to come over as I'm walking towards him. He gets off the tractor and has this look like he's about to cry. I was wondering where in the hell this kid's parents were. Clearly they were clueless as to their son's whereabouts, and someone could have easily snatched the kid up and taken him. I told him(rather loudly) "Let's go sweetie, clearly this boy isn't being supervised very well and should be disciplined for doing this to you."

I didn't know what to do. I headed to the car and didn't know until we were on our way home that this boy had in fact bit my kid. I was in shock myself and my son was now in tears. "It hurts mommy". He didn't break the skin. But you could see the outline of this kid's mouth on my son's upper arm. Four little dots each positioned for two upper and two lower teeth markings. His arm was a bit swollen and I called his dad because I truly didn't know what to do. Should I go back and find this boy's parents and confront them or just let it go? Since he didn't break the skin his dad said the parent probably wouldn't do much anyway, seeing too how non-observant they were in the first place with this child's behavior they probably wouldn't care.

What kind of parent let's their kid act this way? I will admit my kids are far from angels, but they wouldn't purposely go after another child just to get their way. With each other, they fight over the silliest of things, but when they are out on the playground, they are so easy going and play fairly well with others.

I'm just annoyed with the fact this happened to my son and even more annoyed by the fact the parents were oblivious to it all. I wrote a letter to the HOA which is really the only thing I could think of at this point. If my informing them can save other children from the wrath of this little playground monster then at least something good will come of this.

To the irresponsible parents of this child I have this to say to you: I know that accidents happen, but when your child intentionally goes after my child, that's no accident. I shouldn't have to wrap my kids up in bubble wrap before they head to the playground simply because you don't know how to control your kid. If he can't play nice, you need to keep him at home where he can bite you instead of innocent children who didn't instigate his unruly behavior. I know for a fact my child wasn't instigating it, because I WAS WATCHING HIM!

Nobody and Not Me....My Two Favorite "People"

Welcome to my parenting blog. It is a wonderful joy for me to share the fun and not so fun moments of my parenting journeys. I thought I'd start this one out with a little bit about the two other children I have in my family. Their names are Nobody and Not Me.

Nobody ever listens. It's true. I have spent most of my days as a mother uttering these words and often find myself talking to the Wall. The Wall seems to listen more than Nobody ever does. Take for instance this evening. We have new neighbors, and my daughter is the most excited out of all my kids as she is the only one who doesn't have a little girl playmate. Yesterday when talking to the little girl's grandmother, I gave the little girl our phone numbers and told her when she can come over and play or wants to play at her house to call our numbers. This afternoon from the time my kids got out of school, they were telling me how they wanted to go over to this girl's house. I kept on telling them, "they have our numbers, they will call us."

That information doesn't register in the minds of 6 year olds and a 5 yr old girl, and apparently not in the mind of a 51 year old man either. After JUST explaining to ALL of them that they need to wait for her to call, their father tells them to go ahead and knock on this girl's door when he got home from work. The grandmother answers, says that the mom will be home in fifteen minutes and she will let the parents know that they want to play. Half an hour later, after I told them just to wait until she calls them another day, he sends them back over there.

No answer at the door. "But mommy their car is upfront!" I tried explaining *(again mind you) that they are probably busy and that they may be eating dinner like we just did. I told them just to wait until she calls them. Of course Nobody listens. And as soon as their dad is done watching his show, he walks them down there. I'm thinking I am not going to be a part of this fiasco, I'll just hide here behind my puter monitor, expecting them to come back right away.

Nope.

They were there about a good ten minutes before I finally mustered up the courage to go down there for recon and bring my troops back. I introduced myself and just told them I wanted to meet them. I asked the mother if they were busy, turns out they were, it's daddy's birthday over there and they were going out to dinner. Baby got up from a nap(i was too afraid to ask if the kid's and their dad ringing the bell woke the poor little guy up). I could feel myself squirming at this point. I wished the dad a happy birthday and hoped my kids would follow...seriously...chalk on the sidewalk and going home with mommy...guess which won?

Now onto Not Me. He's my favorite little character. Not Me has a way of breaking things, leaving yogurt and spilled milk on the carpet and my favorite was when the dog got out of the yard a few days ago, Not Me was responsible for that one too. My oldest, who is 18, told the kids one time "I'd love to meet this Not Me character, I have a bone to pick with him." lol.

I had just got done making the bed upstairs. The house was spotless(according to my standards anyway, immaculate will never happen in this household LOL). I went down to get a load of laundry and came back up to find the bed in a disarray. I called all the kids upstairs and asked them "WHO DID THIS?"

"Not me", says my daughter, and my twins, both in unison said "Not Me".

I give up.

If I ever find the little Leprechaun, Fairy, Elf, Gnome, or other invisible intruder I'll have to ask him if I need to show him how to change the toilet paper rolls in the bathroom. Because it seems like that roll is always full when everyone else needs it, but me. And when I ask "Who used the last of the toilet paper and didn't change the roll?!" I get the ever famous answer...

"NOT ME!"

*sigh*